I think that the three main areas that cause this are distraction, discouragement and deception. How many times do we set out to pray and yet our mind is flooded with the "to do list." This is normal and so rather than thinking of ourselves as failures, we can simply change our mind to again focus on Christ.

Discouragement too is another ploy of the enemy to sidetrack us from God. It knocks on the heart of all. We only have to read the book of Psalms and realize that we are not alone in these thoughts and feelings. We can remind ourselves of the good that has occurred and that today will pass.

Deception is the last problem. I believe that it needs more thought. Too easily do we justify our wrong choices and weaknesses at times to be disobedient toward God. We need to examine ourselves. What is our true heart and who is our true god? Is it God Himself or His grace? Upon what are we most focussed?

This may sound tough but we will all have to make these choices at times. What is the best answer? To not just pray but to know the words of God that are revealed in the Bible.

We misunderstand grace because we have nothing with which to compare it.

Perhaps some of us knew of one whom modeled God's grace but that is rare.

More likely we have been told the words, "I love you and will stand by you 'til the end," but our humanity is flawed.

This causes us to crave unconditional love but we assume that such love cannot exist.

Receiving grace cannot happen by merely memorizing Scripture or reading the Bible but by the decision to put aside our compulsive habits.

We all have these habits. Rather than leaning into God's grace, we attempt to make our life happier via our own means and habits. We try to meet our emotional needs by our means rather than exposing our core being to God.

Only as we allow Him to take away our compulsive habits do we experience true grace.

We may need to reveal our deepest secrets to another so that we can walk this path. We will probably need to stop making excuses and hear another's advice. We will have to discipline ourselves to live differently which becomes easier over time.

God's grace operates differently to human love. We feel that we must work to deserve it. The beauty of God's grace is that this is not so. (Psalm 103:10)